<4 MONTHLY. ^ 
XX. 
COLOMBO, APRIL 1st, 1901. 
No. 10. 
CACAO PODS AND THEIR SEED. 
(By J. B. Careuthees, f.l.s.) 
ACAO is grown for its seed, 
and the value of the fruit 
depends upon tlie quality and 
weight of the seed contained 
in it. 
In selecting Cacao pods for 
seed planting, it is important 
to know if any external 
characteristics can be used as guides. As a rule, 
in Ceylon, Cacao planters have their individual 
methods of selection by colour, shape, size or other 
character. Thus, one man chooses the biggest pods, 
another the longest which have a knobby fruit 
wallj another those of a certain shade of colour. 
In order to test the value of characters such as 
these, I have begun to measure and weigh a series of 
pods of different varieties, grown under varying 
conditions, and so far as my experiments have 
S[one (only to the examination of some two or three 
Imndred), the characters of size and weight of the 
fruit do not afTord any criterion of the weight of 
contained seed, which is the only consideration to 
the planter growing Cacao for the market. 
The diagrams (pp. 656-657) are drawn to scale, 
and they show so far as they go that the size of 
the fruit is due chiefly to the thickness of the fruit 
•wall and gives no clue to the number or weight of 
tUe seeds in the pod* 
The investigation of these and other pods points 
to the uselessness of any selection of pods for seed 
by external appearance. A more hopeful method 
and one calculated to improve the Cacao plant, is 
the selection of seed from parents possessing marked 
advantages over their fellows, such as abnormally 
large and regular production of fruit, i.e., large 
number of pods on the tree or large number of 
heavy seeds in the pod, liardiness against vary- 
ing conditions, production of fruit at a suitable 
dry season of the year, CLuickness in growing to 
maturity and the fruit-producing period. These 
and similar advantageous qualities in parents 
should by selection be perpetuated as far as possible. 
When a larger number of records of these 
measurements and weights of the fruit of Cacao 
have been collected, more definite knowledge will 
be gained as to methods of selection by fruit 
characters. The diagrams, however, of these 
twenty fruits will perhaps induce planters to make 
such observations, and so gain imformation as to the 
nature of the Cacao pod which would give the best 
return tn the cultivator and the least waste, so that 
selection should be carried on in the right direc» 
tion. The waste material in pods 2 and 7 is in the 
proportion of 13 to 1, whereas in 1, 3 and 4 it ia 
less than 4 to 1. The magnificent proportions of 
pods like these two (2 and 7) must be considered 
in the calm light of the commercial value of the 
seeds which at once brings them on a level 
with pods of an average or even diminutive size, 
and the tree in producing tlie latter is not using 
its forces to form so much material which brings 
no monetary return. 
